Leave the room, Hooper." This last
was said so exactly like his mistress at her best, that the butler obeyed
it, making a wide circuit as he passed Rachel, who still stood, the picture
of wrath, over the broken china and glass.
Not a word was said for some minutes. Outside, Polly, the old parrot, was
scolding vociferously, and the tall clock was ticking away for clear life.
Hooper, his ear first, and then his eye, glued to the keyhole, was vainly
endeavoring to find out what was passing in the sitting-room.
At last Rachel drew a long breath. "I'm sorry I broke your things," and she
awkwardly pushed the bits with her shoe,
"Oh, that's no matter," said Miss Parrott, feeling astonished at herself
for the words, "but you said such dreadful things. I can never forget
that." She drew a long breath.
No matter that she broke those beautiful things! The whole truth flashed
upon Rachel, and although the smell of the hated stuff was even yet
dragging back to her all the memory of her low condition of life through
such childhood as she had known, over and above it all was quickly rising
the conviction that for this unpardonable misdemeanor she would be sent
back to the city and--awful thought!--perhaps to Gran. She set her teeth
together hard, and clenched her thin hands as they hung by her side.
"Yes. I say it is no matter," repeated Miss Parrott, not suffering herself
to glance at the wreck of her ancestral treasures, "but oh, child! why did
you say such dreadful things?" She still clung to the cabinet, shocked out
of one tradition of her family, as if she must still hold to its time-worn
and honored furnishings.
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